Frodo : I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam : I know.
It’s all wrong
By rights we shouldn’t even be here.
But we are.
It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy.
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened.
But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?
Ok- pause for a second. This is where every, trite, empty Hollywood script in the last 20 years will come up with the same answer. The standard Hollywood script would have Sam answer this way:
Sam: Each other, Mr. Frodo. We’re fighting for each other.
If like me you’re conditioned by standard Hollywood fare like I am, you may still find Sam’s actual answer to be jarring and pleasantly surprising:
Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
Hollywood has lost the idea that there is any meaning in this world beyond the connections we make for ourselves and the subjective narratives we tell ourselves. That’s why 99% of the stories Hollywood is telling today will not be told to our great-grandchildren years from now.
There’s a reason why the transcendent (and true) narrative of the Bible still stands 2 millennia after the last chapter was written. That’s why stories like The Lord of the Rings are still being told generations later.
The stories that matter are the ones that point to something greater than ourselves in a way that rings true. For too many creators in Hollywood, that edges us a little too close to acknowledging our Creator. And Lord knows we can’t have that in Hollywood.
Save the link to this story and listen to Sam’s speech occasionally. I’m not a doctor, but it seems like a great antidote to depression.
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